Music is one of the most subjective of all areas. Enhancement of the musical experience--whether playing or listening--depends upon numerous subjective and objective factors, and the number of relevant factors increases greatly when the art of electronic amplification is involved.
Music aficionados--and particularly guitar players--have long sought variations in electronic techniques which enhance the aesthetic experience of the musician and the listener. One of the areas in which numerous electronic techniques have been tried for enhancement of the musical experience is the use of vacuum tube amplifiers instead of, in addition to, or in conjunction with solid state amplifiers. Many musicians remain firmly convinced that the tube amplifier provides a superior sound for many types of music, despite the proliferation of solid state devices throughout the music industry.
While the desirable sonic characteristics of tube amplifiers for guitars are well known, power supplies for such amplifiers have long been considered sonically neutral. As a result, the typical guitar amplifier provides solid state rectification of AC to DC due to the lower cost and generally greater reliability of the solid state device compared to its thermionic counterpart.
At the same time, many "vintage" instrument amplifiers are much sought after for their ability to recreate the sounds and musical styles of various bygone eras. Unfortunately, such vintage amplifiers typically have deteriorated with age and have become unreliable to the extent that use of such vintage devices is unacceptable. Even in those instances where the performance is satisfactory when measured against the original specifications for the equipment, musicians frequently find that such equipment is extremely limited by today's standards of versatility. Likewise, the equipment is limited to producing only one style of music at one particular volume, for it was most likely under those particular conditions that a landmark recording was made and an identifiable and sought after tone produced.
There has therefore been a need for equipment capable of producing the tones of quality vintage equipment while at the same time providing the versatility and reliability more commonly associated with modern equipment. In addition, it has now been discovered that the common wisdom about rectification overlooks desirable characteristics of tube-based rectifiers.